The Editors Guild of India today expressed deep concern over "abrupt" termination" of four editorial team members of Forbes India magazine, including its editor Indrajit Gupta, without extending "elementary courtesy".
In a statement, the Guild said basic security and protection from arbitrary action are essential if senior journalists are to go about their task with "courage and fairness."
Gupta, Managing Editor Charles Assisi, Executive Editor Shishir Prasad and Director (Photography) Dinesh Krishnan had worked with the magazine since its inception and their "sudden removal without resonable notice and even elementary courtesy cuts at the very root of editorial independence," it said.
The Guild said whether terminatiom of the editorial team members was a reaction to their insistence on exercising their contractual rights to employee stock options or was a result of an overall restructuring exercise was a question to be settled in another forum and preferably through negotiations.
"Considering that senior journalists are involved in the dispute with a media house, the Guild would reiterate at this stage that it is essential that all contracts should be honoured," the statement said. (PTI)
